Towards a universal end effector : the design and development of production technology's intelligent robot hand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Engineering and Automation at Massey University

Research into robot hands for industrial use began in the early 1980s and there are now many examples of robot hands in existence. The reason for research into robot hands is that standard robot end effectors have to be designed for each application and are therefore costly. A universal end effector is needed that will be able to perform any parts handling operation or use other tools for other industrial operations. Existing robot hand research would therefore benefit from new concepts, designs and control systems. The Department of Production Technology is developing an intelligent robot hand of a novel configuration, with the ultimate aim of producing a universal end effector. The concept of PTIRH (Production Technology's Intelligent Robot Hand) is that it is a multi-fingered manipulator with a configuration of two thumbs and two fingers. Research by the author for this thesis concentrated on five major areas. First, the background research into the state of the art in robot hand research. Second, the initiation, development and analysis of the novel configuration concept of PTIRH. Third, specification, testing and analysis of air muscle actuation, including design, development and testing of a servo pneumatic control valve for the air muscles. Fourth, choice of sensors for the robot hand, including testing and analysis of two custom made air pressure sensors. Fifth, definition, design, construction, development, testing and analysis of the mechanical structure for an early prototype of PTIRH. Development of an intelligent controller for PTIRH was outside the scope of the author's research. The results of the analysis on the air muscles showed that they could be a suitable direct drive actuator for an intelligent robotic hand. The force, pressure and position sensor results indicate that the sensors could form the basis of the feedback loop for an intelligent controller. The configuration of PTIRH enables it to grasp objects with little reliance on friction. This was demonstrated with an early prototype of the robot hand, which had one finger with actuation and three other static digits, by successfully manually arranging the digits into stable grasps of various objects

RELATIONSHIP OF NON-BASIC SECTOR INCOME GROWTH AND THE GAMING SECTOR

Nevada disaggregated export-base multipliers were derived to determine if and to what extent non-basic sector income growth was impacted by income growth of selected basic sectors. Results indicate that growth in the Hotel and Gaming Sector is statistically significant and substantially higher than growth in the Other Basic Industries Sector.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

A DISAGGREGATED TIME-SERIES ANALYSIS OF EXPORT-BASE MODELS: A CASE STUDY ON ELKO COUNTY OF NEVADA

An important issue of debate in economic base literature is whether the export-base theory applies best to the short run, the long run, or both. An attempt is being made here in answering this crucial question by applying a two-step test for cointegration on quarterly employment data, and in gaining insights as to whether or not any unequivocal judgment can be made regarding the validity of the economic base hypothesis.International Relations/Trade,

Near Earth asteroid orbit perturbation and fragmentation

Collisions by near earth asteroids or the nuclei of comets pose varying levels of threat to man. A relatively small object, approximately 100 meter diameter, which might be found on an impact trajectory with a populated region of the Earth, could potentially be diverted from an Earth impacting trajectory by mass driver rocket systems. For larger bodies, such systems would appear to be beyond current technology. For any size object, nuclear explosions appear to be more efficient, using either the prompt blow-off from neutron radiation, the impulse from ejecta of near-surface explosion for deflection, or as a fragmenting charge. Practical deflections of bodies with diameters of 0.1, 1, and 10 km require interception, years to decades prior to earth encounter, with explosions a few kilotons, megatons, or gigatons, respectively, of equivalent TNT energy to achieve orbital velocity changes or destruction to a level where fragments are dispersed to harmless spatial densities

Factors Influencing Trade Area Capture in the Great Basin Area

International Relations/Trade,

The aerodynamic characteristics of a model wing having a split flap deflected downward and moved to the rear

Tests were made on a model wing with three different sized split trailing-edged flaps, in the NACA 7 by 10 foot wind tunnel. The flaps were formed of the lower rear portion of the wing and were rotated downward about axes at their front edges. The lift, drag, and center of pressure were measured with the axis in its original position and also with it moved back in even steps to the trailing edge of the main wing, giving in effect an increase in area. The split flaps when deflected about their original axis locations gave slightly higher maximum lift coefficients than conventional trailing-edge flaps, and the lift coefficients were increased still further by moving the axes toward the rear. The highest value of C(sub L max), which was obtained with the largest flap hinged at 90 per cent of the chord from the leading edge, was 2.52 as compared with 1.27 for the basic wing

Dependent randomized rounding for clustering and partition systems with knapsack constraints

Clustering problems are fundamental to unsupervised learning. There is an increased emphasis on fairness in machine learning and AI; one representative notion of fairness is that no single demographic group should be over-represented among the cluster-centers. This, and much more general clustering problems, can be formulated with "knapsack" and "partition" constraints. We develop new randomized algorithms targeting such problems, and study two in particular: multi-knapsack median and multi-knapsack center. Our rounding algorithms give new approximation and pseudo-approximation algorithms for these problems. One key technical tool, which may be of independent interest, is a new tail bound analogous to Feige (2006) for sums of random variables with unbounded variances. Such bounds are very useful in inferring properties of large networks using few samples

Empirical Perspectives on Mediation and Malpractice

The use of mediation in the medical malpractice context is examined. The impact of any court-related alternative dispute resolution program is also discussed

Algebraic proofs of some fundamental theorems in algebraic K-theory

We present new proofs of the additivity, resolution and cofinality theorems for the algebraic K-theory of exact categories. These proofs are entirely algebraic, based on Grayson's presentation of higher algebraic K-groups via binary complexes